Inez eBook

Dr. Bryant had nursed the last patient into convalescence:
still he lingered, and at the close of St. ——­’s
day, announced his intention of remaining until the
difficulties with Mexico were either amicably arranged,
or war declared. Mary and Florence he often met,
for he was a constant visitor at Mr. Hamilton’s.
His manner toward them was very different; with Mary
he ever assumed the light bantering tone of brotherly
freedom; with Florence he was always grave and earnest.
Their conversation was generally upon literary topics,
of which she was fond. Many were their discussions
for and against their favorite authors and philosophers.
In these arguments Mary seldom took part, though fully
qualified to do so. Occasionally her cousin asked
her opinion on various topics; at such times she gave
them clearly, yet modestly, and with a gentle dignity
peculiar to herself. The earnest attention with
which Frank listened to her views, and his happy smile,
when they coincided with his own, somewhat puzzled
Mary; yet she welcomed his repartees with the same
bright smile, and allowed distrust and jealousy no
room in her heart.

CHAPTER X.

“He
swore that love of souls
Alone had drawn him to the church; yet
strewed
The path that led to hell with tempting
flowers,
And in the ear of sinners, as they took
The way of death, he whispered peace.”

Pollok.

How wearily pass the hours to the anxious watcher
beside the couch of pain. To her, it seems as
though the current of time had forgotten to run on
and join the mighty past, and that its swift waters
were gathering glassily around her. With unmitigated
care, Florence had attended the bedside of her suffering
parent; occasionally slumbering on his pillow, but
more frequently watching through the long nights,
and often stealing to the casement, to look out upon
surrounding gloom, and wonder if the light of day
would ever fall again on earth. Ah! in the midnight
hour, when all nature is hushed when universal darkness
reigns, when the “still small voice” will
no longer be silenced, then we are wont to commune
with our own hearts. All barriers melt away,
and the saddened past, the troubled present, and the
shadowy future rise successively before us, and refuse
to be put by. In vain we tightly close the aching
lids; strange lurid lights flare around us, and mysterious
forms glide to and fro.

To the guilty, how fearful must the season of darkness
prove, when, unable longer to escape from themselves,
they yield to the pangs of remorse, and toss in unutterable
anguish!

“By night, an atheist
half believes a God.”

And thousands, who in the sunny light of day rush
madly on to ruin, pause, shudderingly, in the midnight
hour, and look yearningly toward the narrow path where
Virtue’s lamp, flashing into the deepest recesses
of surrounding gloom, dispels all shadow; and, in
imagination, view the Christian peacefully descending
the hill of life, fearlessly crossing the “valley
of the shadow of death,” and resting at last
on that blest shore, where night and darkness are
unknown, “swallowed up in endless day.”